Justice across Real and Imagined Food Worlds: Rural Corn Growers, Urban Agriculture Activists, and the Political Ontologies They Live By

Abstract

The article examines two seemingly disparate case studies, one involving conventional corn producers and agriculture professionals located in North Dakota, the other focusing on participants in a diverse urban agriculture cooperative in an anonymized U.S. city. Drawing on qualitative interviews and data‐presenting devices known as “word clouds,” the article explores how, and to a lesser extent why, understandings of the terms “social justice” and “autonomy” varied between these spaces. While these imagined political ontologies differed greatly, the article describes each case as grounded in a shared neoliberal (“real”) world that negatively impacts both populations, a realization that could provide a source of recognition and reconciliation between groups. The article concludes by asking why those interviewed in the rural space failed to understand their marginalization to be an artifact of the neoliberal highly individualistic worldview that their articulated imaginaries appear to support, while also exploring how the divergent political ontologies between the groups can be brought into better conversation with each other.

‘Smart’ Farming Techniques as Political Ontology: Access, Sovereignty and the Performance of Neoliberal and Not‐So‐Neoliberal Worlds

“…The pragmatic lesson to take from this observation involves understanding, for example, that two farmers – even neighbouring farmers – can use similar words (‘access’, ‘justice’, etc.) and yet mean very different things (see also Carolan ). Right to Repair activists, therefore, looking to enrol Farm Hack participants (or vice versa) would want to engage those actors differently than if approaching, say, a conventional corn‐soybean farmer from the US Midwest.…”

“…Those familiar with the writings of Sen, who was introduced in the prior section, will know that his capabilities approach is grounded in the liberal tradition, which he has been criticised for (Schlosberg ). While Sen's position is individualistic, this does not mean capability approaches are antithetical to community or collectivistic ontologies (Carolan ).…”

The Rural Problem: Justice in the Countryside

“…But we have to also be cognizant of the potential blind spots that could be created by scholarship that looks to how social/food/environmental justice is negotiated at the level of everyday life. As Carolan () highlighted in a recent issue of this journal, groups can conceptualize “justice” differently—a principle that has also been well documented in the justice literature. In addition, those definitions can vary so wildly that the concept of “justice activism” might not even make sense for certain populations.…”

“…If certain rural and politically conservative identities operate in accordance with justice grammars where the notion of “justice activism” does not make sense, as potentially suggested by Carolan's () data, then we have a potential error of omission problem. What becomes of those groups experiencing real grievances if their language does not align with what justice activist scholars (and the activists themselves) are looking for?…”

Connecting Urban Food Plans to the Countryside: Leveraging Denver’s Food Vision to Explore Meaningful Rural–Urban Linkages

“…Further, the rural U.S. lags behind the urban U.S. in recovering from the Great Recession, although it was nearing prerecession unemployment levels as of 2016 [11]. These material inequities are the causes and consequences of growing cultural and social disconnects between rural and urban spaces [12], as evidenced by political cleavages in recent elections in Europe, the U.S., and Brazil, including populist movements such as Brexit [13,14].…”